


Broad Brush

by Shayvaalski



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Elementary (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Free Verse, Gen, Poetry, Racism, Remix, Sexism, White Privilege, Wits on Tap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 06:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3885580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shayvaalski/pseuds/Shayvaalski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Wits on Tap Poetry Challenge: A remix of gardnerhill's Tea and Bitching. </p><p>(Freeverse.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broad Brush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gardnerhill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Tea and Bitching](https://archiveofourown.org/works/651214) by [gardnerhill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill). 



They are each of them two strikes: _exotic  
_ and female, and wary of a third—there are so many. All three  
would recognize a sister in any skin she wore. This is  
the arc of them: recurring character, token, leading lady. Their bodies  
  
breathe strength into each other, vibrate  
at a frequency far above or far  
below what the men they love or hate can hear; each flick  
of hand and twist of hair, each lift of glass or cup, each bending of a body  
into a body sings it. No one  
dares to interrupt—there is  
  
some writhing rage around them that makes this place  
(of all the places in all the world—) by hook and crook a safe one. Here  
  
Joan ducks one shoulder to sweep her hair behind and shakes  
it into place, and no one looks and her and says _Are you angry? You’re  
_ _angry. Come look at bees_. Sally  
  
is radiant, her mouth  
a mouth that boys and men would die for. And Martha is purely  
and fiercely human, smart  
as a whip and twice as fast, the savior  
  
of all of us whether we knew or not. They  
commiserate. They swallow tea as prelude and drink  
like women drink, with purpose and without  
forgetting. (The drinks in here are free. No one would dare  
  
to charge.)

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that I am also a white person (and not even a woman, though I come from that experience) writing the thing! I'm always up for corrections.


End file.
